Sally Helgesen was the first writer to focus on what women have to contribute to organizations rather than how they need to change and adapt. Her bestselling book, The Female Advantage, widely hailed as “the classic work” on women’s leadership styles, is used in companies, training seminars, and college classes around the world. She speaks before, coaches, and consults with organizations interested in attracting, retaining, and developing terrific women.

   She is the author of four other books, including The Web of Inclusion: A New Architecture for Building Great Organizations, cited in The Wall Street Journal as one of the best books on leadership of all time. In 2001, she published Thriving in 24/7: Six Strategies for Taming the New World of Work, which shows how people at every level can achieve satisfaction and balance in today’s intense and demanding workplace.

   Sally has delivered seminars, keynotes, and workshops at hundreds of the world’s leading corporations, partnership firms, universities and non-profits. She has taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and at Smith College and been Visiting Scholar at Northwestern University and the Culinary Institute of America. Articles about her work have been featured in Fortune, Business Week, and Fast Company, and she has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs. She has also been nominated as one of the Ten Top Thinkers of the World and to the advisory board of the Best Practices Institute, founded by Louis Carter.

Programs:

Challenges & Opportunities for Women Leaders: 2007 

   In this presentation, Sally brings together what she has learned in 20 years of researching women leaders around the world. She sets forth and passionately defends the advantages and skills that women bring to organizations, and show why these skills are precisely what organizations need today. Her emphasis is positive and affirming. From the first, she has focused on what women have to offer their organizations instead of how they need to change or adapt. The Female Advantage was the first book to look at women’s contributions through a positive lens.

   Over the last few years, she has also begun to explore the major challenges that still hold women back from achieving their maximum leadership potential. In this presentation, Sally focuses on the five primary challenges: Positive Personal Marketing, Influencing Up, Leveraging Partnerships, Setting Boundaries, and Redefining Satisfaction.  She explores these challenges and offer solid, practical, and concrete advice on how to overcome them. Her aim is to help women realize their gifts, articulate their style, identify what is holding them back, and develop an action program for moving forward in a powerful and confident way.

Leading in 24/7:

   Sally explores five trends that are transforming organizations and show what these trends will mean for leaders in the years ahead.  Sally’s research has convinced her that radical social change is reshaping work and opportunity in today’s global 24/7 environment. At the heart of this change is a revolution in human expectations. This revolution affects every kind of organization–- corporations, small businesses, nonprofits, associations, professional services, education, the military. To achieve success, leaders must understand the causes, impact, and implications of this revolution.

   The talk helps leaders reach this understanding and translate it into a strategic agenda that moves their organization powerfully forward. She focuses on achievable skills and practices and clearly describes the new tasks that leading in 24/7 demands.